


Vignettes

by likeafouralarmfire



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: A home here for the microfiction I post now and then, Canon Era, F/F, One Shot Collection, Originally Posted on Tumblr, figured it's better to keep the small ones in one place?, null POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-10-07 20:36:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 12,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10368909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeafouralarmfire/pseuds/likeafouralarmfire
Summary: Interstitial moments of intimacy and tenderness.





	1. Whatever happens, this is

Night came down fast while the two of you were otherwise occupied, and now the only light in the room is the moonlight--that and the lights of the city, pouring in over the floorboards. 

Lying on your side, you watch Sameen sit up in bed. In a second or two, you expect her to reach for a tank top on the floor and order you to get out--though you have no intention of moving an inch until she makes you. For now, it feels good to stay like this, smelling her pillow, watching her shift, wondering what side she sleeps on. 

The seconds tick by, a minute, maybe. She’s still sitting there, silent, just looking out her window, her expression flickering with unreadable thoughts.

You’ve never been much of a romantic, but looking at her like this, her face alight with intention, bare back in three-quarter profile, partially silhouetted by the glow of the city and the moonlight, makes you melt even deeper into her warm bed.

Sameen doesn’t say a word as she lifts her hands to her hair, pulls down the band, and shakes her loose hair over her shoulders. She clearly put it back wet; the scent of her shampoo is fresh and sweet as she pulls her fingers through from roots to ends. Her hair is long, maybe longer than yours, and impossibly dark; as it falls through her fingers, she looks like she’s weaving ribbons of light from the window into its strands.

This is the first time you’ve watched her let her hair down. It feels somehow more intimate than kissing, more intimate than undressing. The wet scent of her hair, the looseness of its mass spread over her shoulders and back, is like a new, a deeper kind of nakedness. You watch her carefully, the way you’d watch an animal in a clearing, in the moonlight: not a stray movement, not so much as a deep breath. 

Her hands drop to her lap; she stares out the window a little while longer. You will her to keep looking, keep looking out at the world, so you can keep looking at her.

 

* * *

 

The first time Sameen lets you take her hair down--a while later--it feels like like kissing her for the first time all over again.

You don’t know what made you ask, or what made her say yes. It’s the middle of the night after a mission and she’s gotten what she brought you here for and you’re both exhausted, but she hasn’t told you to go, and something in you tells you she won’t tonight.

She turns her back to you hesitantly--not as if she doesn’t want you to do this, but as if she doesn’t know how to let you. It strikes you again how new this is to both of you, this radical closeness: sharing a bed every now and then, waking up tousled and soft and new with someone else after a perfectly contented lifetime of sleeping alone. Over time, little by little, you’ve been unfolding each other’s private rituals, and it’s strange and terrifying and beautiful--at least to you.

Trembling a little, your fingers trace the nape of her neck and twine around the mass of her hair. With the other hand, you slide off the elastic band--and ring it around your own wrist. It might still smell like her, later.

Sameen sighs when you release her hair from your hand, as you comb down the length of it with your fingers. You coil and uncoil it in your hands; you dig your fingers into her scalp and draw them slowly down the length of her hair, past the section still damp from under the elastic, all the way to the ends. Your fingertips trace her shoulder blades, her collarbone, the length of her arms.

Her lips are parted and her eyes are closed. You’re surprised she’s still letting you touch her like this, so gently, without pushing you away--or grabbing your wrists and turning it into her own game.

Because you can’t help pushing your luck, you lean in and smell her hair, smell the warmth of her neck, and when she doesn’t bat you away, kiss her ears and the soft patches behind them, the joining of her jaw, her temples, through the damp curtain of her hair. 

When she finally gets tired of it and shakes you off to get some water, you fall back onto the bed, more contented than you think you’ve ever been in your life--that is, until she comes back to bed and begins to kiss you, thirstily and tenderly.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, when you’re across the city, you still feel the pressure of her hair tie around your wrist like a memory, like a promise.


	2. Prompt: Moving in together

It happens little by little. A toothbrush, a few shirts, some computer equipment. One night she brings in two bags of groceries and unpacks them into the fridge and cabinets, like it’s a totally normal thing to buy milk and eggs and apples to keep in someone else’s apartment.

“They’re for you too, silly,” she says. “I want to cook us omelettes tomorrow, unless She has other ideas.”

Root hasn’t had a permanent home in quite some time now, so it feels natural just to let it happen. Since she’s basically chaos incarnate, it’s like entropy, the law of the universe: Root taking up space with more and more entitlement, until it feels like it’s always been hers too.

Having her around all the time is kind of annoying, but honestly, mostly nice. She makes the whole apartment smell like her, opens the windows regularly to air it out, keeps it cleaner than it’s ever been. The sex is better than ever–but sometimes she’s too exhausted for that and falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow, and that’s kind of nice too: to fall asleep next to her, to be close in a simple, animal way.

Mornings might be the best part. Root asleep looks so young, so sweet and soft in the early light. It’s easy to forget who she was, who she’s been, what she’s done, when she’s so perfectly still and peaceful, her breath warm and steady and her hair curtained over her favorite pillow–the one she brought over last week. 

She won’t be safe forever, but she will be for just a few minutes longer–and just now, it’s enough.


	3. Silence

“Gentle,” she whispers--warns--still--every time.

The scar behind Root’s ear is thin, pink against the stark whiteness of her skin. Such a soft delicate place, just at the nape of her neck. 

She’s learned not to flinch, as long as the touch is light, soft, careful. Just hooking her hair behind her ear, in the months after the stitches healed, made her freeze in a kind of animal fear. Even now that she’s calmed down, it’s crucial to telegraph that the touch is coming, to trace her hairline or rub her temple in slow gentle circles. She always closes her eyes.

It’s a tell, when she’s afraid--not of bullets or bad guys, but of being soft, being vulnerable. She touches her earlobe, traces the shell, drags her fingertips down the length of the scar.

She does talk about it, sometimes, in these quiet stolen hours together. About palpable absence, negative space. A question mark, an emptiness carved out of her perception. It’s physical, but it’s mathematical too, in her mind: a part of that vast equation only she can see or make sense of. A black box of meaning.

“Sometimes I forget,” she admits one night. “It’s my new normal.” 

“You do think about it, though?”

She laughs. “How could I not? It... I’m reminded in weird ways, every now and again. Like, the other night, late in a subway station--there’s a man there who plays violin. He’s been playing there a long time, and at night, when it’s empty and there’s no one talking and moving around, the sound fills the whole platform. There’s a sad song, a slow one--I don’t know what it’s called--but it used to make me feel lonely. In this wonderful way.” Her eyes are so dark in the dark room; there’s no moonlight, just dim reflected lights from the cold, silent city outside the window.

“But the other night... it was like I was underwater. The wholeness was gone somehow. Like part of the song just... vanished.” She seems to want to say something else, but the sentence dissolves, unspoken.

Root moves in closer, slides her hand under the sheets. Her fingertips play over bare skin and her touch is a soft, silent kind of song, a song that means nothing beyond itself but feels full of purpose. She would have made a good violinist herself, maybe, or something like that, if someone had put an instrument in her hands as a kid. 

She smells sweet behind her ear, like shampoo and warm skin and--like Root. The skin there is damp but it doesn’t taste like sweat; there’s no salt to it, just something hard to define. Like nothing but herself. 

The fineness of the suture is surprising--it was haphazardly done, hastily corrected, poorly cared for--Root was always so bad at looking after her injuries--and yet it did heal, into this afterthought of a scar, mappable with the lightest touch of fingertip or tongue--gently, always, always gently.

“Don’t say anything,” she whispers, her voice dampened by the pillow. She could mean, don’t respond. Or she could mean, don’t speak into this ear, don’t say anything I can’t hear. 

Either way, doesn’t matter. The silence, the faint whisper of sheets and the darkness of the room and the warmth of her kisses, is the only possible answer.


	4. Polish

“Can you hold still? At this rate, you’re going to have more polish on your fingers than your nails.”

“Can’t _you_ keep that hand still? You’re the one holding it.”

“You’re scratching your ankle and it’s moving all of you.”

“You know, you’ve really got to work on your coordination skills, sister. No good on a mission if you can’t hit a moving target.”

“You’ve never complained about my manual dexterity before,” quips Root, with that stupid flirty little smile that just gets right under the skin.

Exactly how this little grooming session was allowed to happen, it’s hard to say. Okay, maybe it’s very easy to say. Root asked, and there was no good reason to say no to her. She usually gets her way, in the end. Besides, it’s kind of cool to watch how handy she is with a polish brush--she’s favored black since she was a teenager, she said, and never saw the need to grow out of it. Black polish, clearly, is not for the faint of skill.

Actually, it feels nice: the cool licks of the brush from nail bed to tip, the delicate way she turns and positions each finger in her own hand and examines her work, the way she scrapes a blot off the cuticle with a half-moon scrape of her thumbnail.

The acrid smell of polish rises from the open bottle on the bench next to Root, but it isn’t as offensive as it used to be. With Root touching up every few days, the smell has become routine, almost comforting--a sign she’s nearby, or just left. It means she’s not threatened or post-adrenaline crashing or racing the clock, but relaxed, thinking about her nails, probably mulling something over. Root is always mulling something over.

“I like this,” she muses, painting the middle of a nail in one cool, smooth stroke, and lapping up the excess on each side. “So... intimate.” Then she shakes back her hair and flashes those full-on bedroom eyes, and just like that, it seems risky to be doing this here in the subway, where the guys could walk in at any second. Not that they haven’t almost walked in on much more compromising positions--more than once. But the way Root’s looking right now, like she’s got lots of fun follow-up activities in mind, it’s a shame to have wet nails and potential intruders to ruin the prospects.

She’s nearly finished with the other hand when--sure enough--the sound of footsteps from around the corner.

“Ms. Groves,” drawls a voice from around the corner, “I thought I asked you to stop painting your nails in these close quarters.”

“Oh, I’m not painting _my_ nails, Harry,” says Root in that syrupy way of hers, neglecting to finish the sentence, and holding eye contact in that conspiratorial, play-with-me-Sameen kind of way that works in the right mood--like today.

“Come now, I can smell--oh.” He’s rounded the corner and is taking in the scene now. Root looks up at him impassively, painting the last nail with lavish slowness, blowing on the wet polish with lightly pursed lips that can’t hide the smile that’s all over her. She’s one evil bitch.

Harold’s turning colors as his eyes flick between points in the scene--intertwined hands, open bottle of polish, shoes off and feet touching, Root’s cool gentle breath still running over the row of nails. When he looks away, Root winks, clearly pleased with herself.

“Well, Ms. Shaw, the same goes for you--both of you,” he says, still clearly flustered. “I--I think I forgot to pick up something at the corner store. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“That was close,” says Root, impishly, once he’s gone, and caps the polish bottle. “I think we’ve got some time, if you want me to... entertain you, while your nails dry.”

“The poor man could be back any second. Let’s just... sit here quietly for a few.”

“All right,” she says, “if you insist.” 

Settling into the quiet, Root leans closer, turns each hand over in hers, gently, so as not to smudge the polish. She strokes them carefully, the place between forefinger and thumb, the crux of the wrist; she traces every line deliberately, like some sort of palm reader. It’s the kind of weird, pointless, tender thing she likes to do--but it doesn’t hurt to let her touch, to give her comfort in one of these rare moments of peace. To tell the truth, her touch feels good--warm, soft, relaxing.

And, it must be admitted, she really does give a mean manicure.


	5. Prompt: Shoot + Bear at the dog park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fun prompt from the lovely kasadilla11 on Tumblr.

You’ve never been much of an animal person, but you have to admit that Bear is a beautiful dog. Sleek, muscular, nothing excessive or deficient. He’s perfectly built for speed and strength, perfectly proportioned; he moves with easy precision, like a well-tuned machine.

One could say the same for Shaw, actually. Teeth sinking into an apple, you watch contentedly as she runs alongside Bear, her hair swinging in time with his tail, her perfectly calibrated musculature a clockwork of subtlety beneath her skin. She tosses a ball and crouches, calling to him in animated Dutch as he sweeps his athletic way down and back, again and again, with unflagging drive and joy.

After a few rounds, while Bear is off like a shot to fetch his slobbery ball, Shaw trots back over to you, sweat shining in the pit of her throat, over her collarbone and shoulders and face. She smells like a good long run, and like grass, and yes, a little like dog. When she flops down beside you–her grace of movement abandoned–you offer her a bite of your apple.

“No thanks,” she huffs. “I’ll take some water, though.”

You hand her the bottle under the bench. She uncaps it, takes a long swig, and replaces the cap with a loud wet sigh. 

Bear, not finding Shaw in her expected position, wastes little time in ambling over to the bench. He spits out the drool-and-grass-coated ball at your feet and looks between the two of you, panting, trusting.

“You wanna do the honors?” asks Shaw.

“I’ll pass.” You hold up the apple. Shaking her head, Shaw scoops up the ball, and, cocking her magnificent shoulder back like a shot putter, launches it across the park. Off goes Bear without a beat. Shaw leans forward on her haunches, arms folded over her knees.

“Harold really should take him out more,” she laments.

You trace a line in the cool sweat of her arm with a single finger. “You should take me out more,” you tease, to a well-deserved scowl. “I like it when you get all nice and sweaty.”

Shaw rolls her eyes. Then, unexpectedly, she leans over and tilts your chin to get close to your good ear. “Come by tonight and I’ll return the favor,” she whispers. You flush all over. Pulling back to judge the effects of her words, Shaw smirks, winks, and then stands up. 

“Bear, kom hier,” she calls, and follows up with a whistle. She canters over to meet him and rubs his head vigorously. He licks the sweat off her cheek and the side of her neck.

“Get a shower first,” you call over, taking a drink from the slightly-salty bottle.

Shaw rolls her eyes.


	6. Prompt: Shaw cooks for Root

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Great Tumblr prompt from the inimitable waxbear (who, by the way, helped me figure out how to get an account here).

“I swear to god, Root, you need to eat once in a while. Like, actual food.”

“You and She certainly agree on that point.” Root traces an invisible pattern on the bedsheets.

Ugh. Kitchen cabinets are practically empty. A can of white beans–where did that even come from?–a thing of cayenne, salt, a bottle of bourbon, a handgun, and–ah, here we go–some spaghetti and a jar of sauce.

“I’m going to feed you now.” A little clanging around–here’s a pot, and there should be a wooden spoon in the drawer. Water to halfway up the pot. Burner on. Now it’s the waiting game.

“Why, Sameen, a girl might think you care.”

“I don’t want you to die. And this stuff is probably about to expire.” That’s a lie, and a transparent one, but whatever. 

Root grabs hold, tugs hard. It’s unexpected, and works; she swings herself on top and there’s no fighting her, pinned by the wrists to the bed like this. Her fingers dig into flesh, and it feels nice and not so tender. Root’s good at this: knowing when things are feeling a little too close and intimate and turning the energy elsewhere.

A few glorious minutes of making out like teenagers. But it’s time to check the water. Root’s got to eat.

Adding salt and spaghetti slows the boil; the pasta wilts down the side of the pot after a minute or so, and a few pokes with the wooden spoon start the strands wiggling through the water like sea creatures. Root pads over to watch the action, chin nestling against shoulder. She clings on like a limpet, her body warm and soft, and burrows with her nose, taking deep shameless sniffs.

“Your hair smells nice,” she says.

“Can you not be so close? You’re very distracting.”

“Good.”

In a few more minutes, the pasta seems done. Root gives a second opinion. 

“Al dente,” she pronounces, and holds the spoon against the side of the pot to help drain. “You really should have a colander.”

The sauce warms quickly in the spaghetti pot, and Root manages to locate and wash two bowls in the meantime.

“I suppose it’s too much to ask if you keep red wine.”

“Bourbon work?”

She grins. “Sure.”

Root takes twice the time to eat half of her pasta. She takes dainty sips of whiskey, twirls the spaghetti delicately onto her fork, and stares and stares and stares with a big stupid smile on her face.

“What are you looking at?”

“Just you.”


	7. Prompt: Morning thunderstorm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A v. soft prompt from my dear roamingreader on Tumblr.

The windows in Shaw’s new apartment feel vanishingly thin as rain batters the glass. Cold seeps in from everywhere and the top sheet and scratchy blanket aren’t enough to keep it out. It’s gray and bleak and might be just after sunrise–hard to tell. 

Aching for a little more warmth, you push your luck and burrow closer to Sameen. Lucky she’s still mostly asleep; she groans, shifts her arm, and lets you tuck yourself into the crook of her shoulder.

You close your eyes as the thunder rolls, heavy and slow, over the soundscape. Sameen doesn’t stir. She’s unflappable when she sleeps, heavy and soft and, now and then, like this morning, not-quite-snoring. Her warm body–and the unlikelihood of her waking–are your saving grace. She smells so good–clean and soapy; she showered last night with the new shampoo and conditioner you bought after the green combo goo she normally buys ran out–and her heartbeat replaces the thunder in your good ear as you press your face against her chest.

Must have dozed off, because the next thing you know, the light is struggling harder against the gloom. Sameen is looking down at you, curious. You meet her eyes. She holds your gaze, impassive and calm. The rain is still drumming against the window, but softer than before. 

“How long have you been awake?” you ask, your voice bleary.

“A few minutes.”

“Watching me sleep?”

“No,” she lies, and glances over at the window. Her body curls into yours; you shift onto your side and watch the rain with her. Thunder–faraway this time–rolls through the air.

“Mind if I don’t run down for breakfast sandwiches this morning?”

“We have cereal. And you brought home milk the other night.”

The rain shivers, glitters, a silvery veil over the city. It’s Sunday morning, an indeterminate hour, and the street is slowly grinding to life. A lonely horn sounds from below.

“Got plans today?” she asks.

“Not right away. Let’s stay warm for a little while longer.” 

Sameen smooths back your hair–a rare gesture–and rests her lips against the edge of your ear. She takes a deep breath, and together you watch the rain collide ineffectually against the window, the world outside powerless against this impermeable moment of time and space.


	8. Prompt: Shaw and Root talk about dating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An anonymous Tumblr prompt.

The diner is nearly empty at 1am. Not many places to go after a mission runs late. Coffee’s terrible here, and there’s a light in the corner that won’t stop flickering. Atmosphere’s basically an Edward Hopper painting. Root fits in perfectly as she stares out the window, contemplating, as her eggs get cold and the broken yolk-and-white marble congeals on top of the white toast. Waffles and sausage and scramble are long gone. Not bad. Cheap. Portions could have been bigger, though.

“You gonna eat that?” 

She shakes her head and shoves over the plate. “Should have known better than to order poached eggs at a place like this.”

The eggs are lukewarm at best, rubbery on the outside and runny on the inside, and the toast is flavorless. But it’s food; no need to let it go to waste.

Root looks across the table, glances up and down, and smirks.

“You’ve got yolk at the corner of your mouth,” she points out, and grabs her napkin, ready to dive in.

“I got it.” A hard rub with the paper napkin on each corner. “Good?”

She smiles again in that cryptic way. “Yes. You’re good.”

Root does that thing where she holds eye contact but disappears a little around the edges. She used to do that when the Machine was talking to her, but now she seems to do it when she’s feeling around two threads of thought at once.

“You ever have a girlfriend or boyfriend?” she asks. That was unexpected.

“Nope.” Big swig of coffee, which is supposed to close the subject. But Root never picks up on hints unless she wants to.

“Me either,” she muses, looking out the window again. “I had… feelings for someone, I think, when I was very young. But feelings didn’t end up being my thing.” She sips her coffee, sets it down, and runs her finger along the rim. “I always liked the game, the seduction. The conquest. Anything more… well.”

A long pause. Oh, what the hell.

“Actually, I kind of–I was seeing this guy in high school, for a little while.”

Root brightens, keeps drawing slow circles around her mug, waits for more.

“He got clingy.” Shrug. “Not worth the extracurricular fun anymore.”

“They do get clingy,” she agrees, and, seeming to realize how eager she sounds, settles back in the booth. “If you do your job right.” Her fingertip slides below the rim of the mug, tracing the inner lip. How she makes fidgeting with a coffee mug so goddamn sexy is a mystery to the ways of science.

“Guess I did my job right with you.”

It was meant as banter, but Root looks stricken. Her finger stops in place and she stares down at the half-empty mug of coffee. Crap.

“Root, I didn’t mean…” 

“It’s okay. I know you don’t… I’m not asking for that.”

Her hand feels surprisingly cool; her palm, turned face up, has a little sweat in the creases. She submits to the touch tentatively, with a flicker of a smile, but won’t look up.

“No, I–it’s–this thing we’re kinda–I don’t mind. Just… don’t make me talk about it.”

It takes a few seconds to sink in–weird, uncomfortable, squirmy seconds–but Root’s whole face turns into a freaking sunrise.

“I promise,” she says, with a slow squeeze of her hand that says both thank you and you’ll be happy you said that once we get back to the apartment. 

Then she lets go–she’s pretty much learned how long she can hold on by now–and reaches into her bra for a wad of cash. She peels off a few bills and slaps them onto the table, then tucks the rest back in. The whole operation is mesmerizing. Root notices the attention and bites her lip.

“I think we’ve done all the damage we’re going to do,” she says. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Thought you’d never ask.”


	9. Prompt: Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Tumblr prompt from the lovely compactwelshsociopath.

Root doesn’t like birthdays. The only one who knew hers for a while was Reese, who had done all that intel on her in Texas way back when she’d captured Harold. He made the mistake of wishing her a happy 35 last year, and she looked like she was about to sock him–which is to say, she gave him a wide, savage, unhinged smile and wrapped her fingers around the edge of a table.

“So it’s your birthday today.” In bed in the early light seems like a good enough time to bring it up. She’s still sleepy and humming and trying to wring a few more minutes of closeness out of the morning. But now she gets stiff and quiet.

“You don’t like birthdays.” It’s not a question.

“No,” she says, “I don’t like birthdays.”

“Why not? You get cake and free shit.”

“We didn’t–they weren’t really a thing at my house. My mom… she was kind of checked out a lot of the time.”

“Oh.” This got awkward fast. But the floodgates are open now, and it’s rare Root talks about the hard time she had growing up.

She burrows closer and plays with a handful of tank top–for comfort, or as a quid pro quo for making her talk about this, it’s hard to say.

“When I was little, birthdays were just another reminder that I was on my own. And when I got older, they reminded me how I was stuck there, wasting my youth in a shithole. After Mom died–well, it wasn’t a problem anymore.”

Silence. She twists her little loop of fabric tighter.

Birthdays were different in the Shaw household. Mom was one of those people with a knack for gifts; she’d manage to track down the perfect thing, something mentioned in some conversation months before. Better yet, she never insisted on a big party with classmates and stuff. Just dinner at the birthday girl’s restaurant of choice, followed by unlimited helpings of cake at home. Strict as she normally was, the all-American birthday was a new world indulgence that, for whatever reason, she really embraced.

“Let’s go eat somewhere tonight. Your pick.”

Root sits up a little.

“Do we have to call it a birthday thing?”

“Not if you don’t want to.”

“Can we call it”–she grins, seeing her opportunity–“a date?”

“Hmph. Don’t push it.”

“That’s not a no,” she points out, walking her fingers underneath the tank top.

Ugh. True. It’s not a no. And the way her wandering hands feel–and her warm kisses–“no” doesn’t seem like a smart answer.

Fine. Point Root. Call it a damn birthday gift.


	10. Prompt: Backrubs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Passing mention of some kinky stuff in this one.

Root hisses in pain. “How do you always know exactly where it’s going to hurt the worst?”

“You get a feel for it. Plus, I’m a doctor. Now relax, or this isn’t going to do you any good.”

Root settles into the bed. She’s lying face down with her shirt off, her hair a dark halo over the pillows. Her shoulders are fine and birdlike and there are only so many places it’s safe to apply pressure, with her bullet wound still healing. But she sighs with pleasure when rubbed along her spine, and under her shoulder blade, and up the column of her neck.

“Too hard,” she says, a little muffled by hair and pillow, on a particularly tight knot at the top of her uninjured shoulder. Ugh. What a baby.

“You gotta let me go a little harder or it won’t help at all.”

“You can go as hard as you want later,” she purrs, and damn it, it has exactly the effect she was going for.

“Shut up.” Lighter pressure, small circles. And, softer, “Okay. Later.”

“You’d better believe it.” She hums with contentment. “What muscle is that?”

“Trapezius.”

“Feels good.”

“Hmm.” And, after a minute, “You like pain. Why won’t you let me go harder?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “Different kind of pain, I guess. It feels… weird.”

“Can you trust me, Root?”

“Of course,” she says, then, her voice soft with surprise.

“I’ll start slow. Just… trust me.”

Her musculature, the tendons and the bones, feel so close to the surface. Root seems so delicate, so fragile. And yet she loves being slammed into walls, gripped and pinned and pushed, bitten and scratched and choked and generally roughed up. It took a little while to get used to it, took her constantly urging _harder_ and _more_ and _don’t be shy_ before things really hit the sweet spot–took internalizing that looking delicate and being delicate were two very different things. And yeah, sometimes she likes gentler, quieter sex, and that’s okay too–but her appetite and capacity for pain make this can’t-take-the-massage-heat a real outlier.

Well. Slow and steady it is.

Root cringes a little when the circles start to get firmer, but she catches herself and relaxes. She controls her breath as the pressure increases, slowly, carefully. More weight; deeper strokes. A little whimper escapes from her mid-stroke, but she seems to remind herself to relax, and the whimper softens into a hum–and then a moan.

After a couple of minutes, the knot feels looser. Root has melted into the bed in perfect animal surrender.

“Okay,” she admits, blearily, “I think that helped.”

“Damn right.”

She turns over, gingerly–using the elbow of her good arm, and flashes her best bedroom eyes.

“Anything I can do to repay you for your services?” she asks, in the same distracting tone as earlier, and tugs at a tank top strap.

“I can think of a few things.”


	11. Prompt: Holding Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An anonymous Tumblr prompt.

Shaw’s used to you pawing at her, or grabbing her hand, or otherwise getting too close for her taste. She’s like a kid sometimes: a fifth grader shaking off an overzealous parent, or maybe an eighth grader disavowing the girl she likes. This is kind of one of your games–well, really mostly your game–and it doesn’t bother you to be rebuffed.

Which is why it surprises you tonight, undercover on a mission, when you grab her hand and she doesn’t let go.

Her hand feels so good: warm and perfectly molded to yours. Strong and callused and, in so many ways, familiar. You’re well acquainted with how Sameen’s hands feel when they’re gripping your waist, or twisting in your hair, or digging into your hips, or inside you, when the two of you are alone. But clasped in yours in the dark nucleus of a nightclub, her hand feels new, bare, strangely intimate. You wonder whether this is what a normal girl might feel like, holding hands with someone who’s never undressed her. Like a promise of something yet to come.

“Wanna dance?” you ask, in your best sexy voice, and it surprises you a little–as it always does–when she acquiesces.

Fundamental pitch, under the drawl of forgettable music, pulses the whole room. The pulsing resets your collective heartbeat as you drag Sameen into the center of the floor, your fingers still interlaced. You throw your other arm around her and pull her closer. She’s three drinks in to your two, and her eyes are liquid black as she lets you hold her against you, a unit of movement in the irresistible collective sway of sweating bodies on the dance floor. 

Dancing like this is no new trick. You’ve seduced half a dozen women like this, easily, with a few well placed compliments, an invitation, and the subsequent excuse to slide your thigh between hers. The formula is simple. As you dance, you brace the hollow of her waist and tell her how beautiful she looks tonight. Most women love being told they’re beautiful. Most women are easy to seduce.

Shaw isn’t most women. She knows she’s beautiful, and it doesn’t particularly concern her. When she wears a tight black dress and lets down her long dark hair, it’s for a purpose. Tonight, there’s someone you’re looking for–due to arrive in less than ten minutes, according to Her–and the time between is just a bit of extracurricular fun. Normally, Shaw would be all attention–but she let you buy her an extra drink earlier, and she doesn’t look as concerned with the mission as she is with your throat and the bruises she left a few days ago. She’s looking at you like she wants to eat you alive–not that you’d complain.

“What are you doing later?” she drawls into your good ear.

“You, with any luck,” you quip.

“In your dreams,” she says, but her grip on the back of your neck says something very different.

“We’ve got a job first,” you remind her.

“I didn’t forget.” She slides closer, and the fabric of her dress bunches up as she slides her knee between yours. The skin of her inner thigh sliding against yours is driving you crazy, and this had better damn well be a quick job.

The song changes, a slow fade into a nearly identical beat, and Sameen is still holding your hand, pressed against your right hip. There’s a slick of sweat between your palms that feels obscene and delicious. She looks straight into your eyes.

“Getting close?” she asks, and it takes you a second to remember she’s talking about the number. 

“Close enough,” you tell her, regretting, for once, the greater purpose that brought you here. “To be continued?”

“If you’re lucky.”


	12. Prompt: Shaw likes Root in glasses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous Tumblr prompt.

Myopia isn’t one of the curses heredity has saddled you with. A good thing, since glasses don’t really work with the lifestyle. It’s hard enough being on call day and night without having to compensate for fuzzy vision with something breakable on your nose–-or worse yet, contacts.

But something funny happens whenever you swoop in on Shaw when one of your cover identities happens to wear glasses. She gives you this odd little look, almost knowing, like you’ve told her a secret and she’s brimming with it.

“Why are you staring?” you ask her once, when you’re slinging off your bag and kicking off your shoes at her place.

“I’m not staring,” she says–-staring-–with that little sphinx smile, from the bed where she’s sitting cleaning her gun. One foot swings from the end, aimlessly, like a cat’s tail.

“Are too.” You pounce into bed next to her, mussing her blankets as you land, and she doesn’t even protest.

“It’s nothing,” she says. A pause. Then she touches the bridge of the glasses you forgot you were wearing. “You just look so silly in these.”

“I’ll take them off, if you don’t like them.” You reach for an earpiece, but she grabs your hand away and pins it to the bed.

“Don’t,” she whispers, and kisses you–-softly, then not-so-softly.

A few minutes later, breathless and tousled, you pull away.

“Got a thing for sexy librarians?” you murmur in her ear.

“Shut up,” she says, which means yes–-or close enough. She rolls you onto your back and you don’t ask any more questions.

Later that night, cleaning the sweat off the non-prescription lenses with the corner of a sheet, you make a mental note to ask Her to give you more nearsighted identities from now on.


	13. Prompt: Root and Shaw get drunk

Root’s not a big drinker, but she knows the good stuff when she sees it. So when she decides to confiscate some top-shelf single-malt from a relevant number’s swanky apartment as an impromptu bonus, no one’s complaining. 

Cork’s out before she can shrug off her jacket.

“You gonna want some of this?”

“If you can see fit to put some in a glass first.”

Two hours and half a bottle later, she’s lying flat on her back on top of the bedsheets, her finger tracing lazy circles around the rim of her empty glass.

“Need a top off?”

Root raises her glass dramatically, as if making a toast, and accepts another two fingers. Then she tilts the glass against her lips, takes a careful slow sip, and licks the edge before lowering her hand back to the bed.

“Tastes like band-aids,” she muses. “But… in a good way.”

The room is–not swimming, exactly, but a little soft around the edges. And Root’s mouth looks wet and very tempting. She closes her eyes.

“How old were you, the first time you got drunk?”

“I dunno. Sixteen or seventeen, I guess.”

“Did you like it?”

“Well enough to do it again. How about you?”

“Nineteen. I had… an older friend. She was very generous with a lot of things. Including her good bourbon.” She rolls onto her side, shakes her hair over her back, and twirls the scotch around the sides of the glass. “I didn’t know it was good at the time. Not until I tasted the bad stuff.” 

“And did you like it?”

“I liked feeling free.” She smiles, a sleepy soft smile. The fingers of her free hand walk deliberately over the sheets–-a lazy march–-until they meet bare skin, and she hums as she slides her hand over a thigh. It feels nice, soft–-not urgent, just playful. 

“Do you feel free now?” Her hair feels impossibly soft, smooth to card through, with only a couple of knots that are easy to tease apart with a finger and thumb. Root laughs like she’s thinking of a private joke.

“Absolutely.”


	14. Prompt: Root teaches Shaw how to mend a seam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt--for one to teach the other something softer than fighting--from asleepinawell.

“Damn wash and fold,” grunts Shaw, shaking out her shirt to examine a patch under one of the arms. “There’s a hole in it.”

You know for a fact that one’s her favorite–-it’s the first one she always picks out of the drawer after you’ve picked up and put away her clean laundry.

“Here, give it to me.” She hands over the shirt, perfunctorily, and you almost laugh when you see it: a rip in the seam, no more than an inch wide. “Oh, that’s not bad. You can stitch that up in five minutes.”

Shaw looks dark. She snatches back the shirt and looks at the hole again. 

“Maybe I can still wear it like this,” she says. “It’s not that big a hole.”

“Don’t be silly. Don’t you know how to fix a seam?”

Shaw gives you a Look. “I’m not much on that girly shit.”

“It’s not girly, it’s a survival skill. Come on, I’ll teach you.”

There’s a sewing kit you swiped from a hotel room a few cities back, tossed into the bottom of your bag. A needle and a few loops of black thread in there–it’ll have to do.

Shaw’s waiting for you on the bed. She’s turned the shirt inside out, the way you told her to, and is running her finger over the unraveled patch.

“Give it here,” you tell her, after threading the needle. “This won’t take long.”

You start stitching a quarter inch from where the hole begins–-there isn’t much black thread, but it should last-–and narrate to Sameen, who’s resting her head against your shoulder to watch you work.

“It’s super easy. I used to mend our clothes from the time I was little.” The needle dips and surfaces, dips and surfaces–-it’s muscle memory from the shirts of yours and your mother’s that you made strong again under your fingers. “You just do little stitches, over and through, and overlap as you go, so it holds well. Want to try?”

Sameen takes the shirt, then the needle, and hesitantly dips it through the layers of cloth. She pulls the thread tight.

“Good. Now pull it back through, and overlap a little.”

The tip of the needle appears–-off the line, then off again, and then back through, close enough to right-–and you help her align the next stitch. By the third one, she’s got it down. 

“Your manual dexterity is, as always, wildly impressive.” You give her ear a playful nibble.

“Watch out,” she says, shrugging you away, “I’m holding something sharp.” But she doesn’t protest as you rest your chin on her shoulder and watch her work. “Anyway, you’re forgetting I was a surgeon.” 

“Oh, I didn’t forget.” 

You show her how to close it off so the work won’t unravel, and since the black is out, you unwind the dark brown thread to finish the seam. After all these years, you’re nothing if not resourceful.

This part goes a lot faster. Sameen’s got it covered.

“You’re good at whip stitching,” you tell her. 

“I’ve had enough practice,” she quips. “Not least on you.”

You help her close off the seam, bite off the extra thread–-old bad habit–-and feel over your work. It holds tight when you tug it, and the line looks true enough when you flip it right-side out. 

“See? You can’t even tell.” You grin at her. “Do I get a reward for rescuing your favorite shirt?”

Sameen scoffs as she turns your face in her hands.

“I did most of the work anyway,” she says, but her kisses definitely say thank you, and that’s good enough.


	15. Prompt: Watching a movie together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt: watching a movie together

“You think they’d move the clock away from the wall a few feet.” The brother who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt has just charged up the stairs and slammed his bedroom door, and one of the aunts has run over to stop the clock from ringing in response. “That’s a fixable problem.”

“You’re missing the point,” says Root, twirling some chow mein around her chopsticks. She’s sitting cross-legged, picnic style on a blanket on the floor. “It’s a comedic device.”

“Fine. So when do we get to the murder?”

“Soon. Kinda. It’s offscreen. Just… enjoy this for what it is.”

It’s Halloween, and Root downloaded _Arsenic and Old Lace_ because this was her ritual when the other kids went trick-or-treating. She’d copied the local rental store’s VHS and watched it over and over, including every year on Halloween night. Not an exciting prospect for an evening in–until she offered to order Chinese, her treat. That sealed the deal. 

“I always thought she was cute,” says Root, watching Cary Grant and his lady love kissing in the graveyard in that old-black-and-white-movie way–mashed mouths, no tongue. Root looks a little sad, watching them–no one should look sad while eating chow mein and watching sub-par movie kisses, but that’s Root for you.

“Did you know how gay you were then?” It comes out facetious, but it’s a real question, more or less. Root picks that up, the way she usually does.

“Not really. The few romantic impulses of my adolescence were… a sort of Schrödinger’s attraction. I wanted to be, at the same time, the woman herself, and the person who could love her.” She laughs. “Compulsory heterosexuality, taken to its logical, absurd extreme.”

The movie cranks its way forward and, true to Root’s promises, picks up the pace. Turns out the old maiden aunts serially poison old guy drifter types, a dozen or so, and have been burying them in the basement. Nice twist. 

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” drawls Root, noticing the pickup in interest.

When the extra food’s pushed aside and getting cold, the next time the action slows down–the evil brother is taking way too long to intimidate his creepy assistant–the best way to pass the time between exciting episodes is clearly a high school style makeout session. Root is more than game to roll over on the blanket, completely ignore the action on her laptop, and turn her attention to being pinned to the floor and kissed mercilessly. 

“This is the best way this movie’s ever gone for me,” she whispers, breathless and thrilled. “Or any movie, actually.”

“Oh, really? No high school flame made the moves on you in the backseat at a drive-in?”

“Don’t be silly,” she says, and submits to more long, lazy kisses.

Eventually things pick up again, and Root watches, contentedly, from her supine position, her wrists pinned behind her head.

“Want me to let you up?”

“Nah. You feel good. And I kind of like watching it upside down.”

Another long, sticky, delicious kiss, then, just for the hell of it. Root clearly doesn’t care anymore about finishing the movie.

“But you’ll love me for my mind, too?” she quips, between kisses. It’s not a declaration, just a quote from that silly graveyard kissing scene in the movie–a memorable one, and easy enough to finish.

“One thing at a time.”


	16. Prompt: Shoot style date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt for a "Shoot kinda date"

“This is _so_ not a date. I don’t care if you’re wearing a dress.”

“Of course not. Can’t a girl whisk her gal-pal-with-benefits off to Buenos Aires on a whim to visit a famous parrilla without people making silly assumptions?” You tap her foot under the table with the toe of your stiletto. “Though I do hope you’ll find it in your heart to repay me somehow when we get back to the hotel.”

Shaw carves off an ambitious hunk of ojo de bife, stuffs it in her mouth, and glowers. Though she doesn’t pull her foot back when you slip out of your shoe and start drawing circles around her inner ankle.

“Your friend had better have gotten us a direct flight back tomorrow,” she says through a half-chewed mouthful. “None of that stopping in Miami nonsense.”

“First class,” you assure her. “With an excellent spirits selection. We know how to take care of our girl.”

Shaw rolls her eyes and swallows. She washes down her bite with a big swig of Malbec before answering. “Gross. I’m not the Machine’s girl. I’ll leave the creepy AI lovefest to you, thanks.”

You try not to grin too hard at her obvious omission; she might not have meant it the way it came out, and the last thing you want is a correction. 

“This is good steak, though,” she admits, sawing off another bite. “Maybe we should make these trips south more often.”

“Thought you’d never ask.”


	17. Prompt: Shaw watches Root curl her hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt: Shaw tells Root she's pretty. (Honestly, I half wrote this to express my admiration for Root's dedication to fancy hair--when I bother to curl mine, it takes me easily 45 minutes and falls flat within hours. Long hair is a pain in the butt.)

Shaw likes to watch you curl your hair. She’ll linger around the doorway, or sit on the bed to clean her guns, or whatever other excuse she finds to be at an angle to watch the bathroom mirror as you twist, hold, release.

“Isn’t that boring?” she asks one day, as you switch sides.

“Yes.” Twist. Hold. Release. The finished curl falls over your collarbone as you separate the next strand.

“Why do you do it, then?”

“I like to look nice.”

Sameen snorts.

“Seems like a lot of work for not much payoff.”

“No need to be rude,” you tease. “Clearly you don’t think I look pretty with my hair curled.”

“You look pretty whether or not you curl your hair,” she says, simply, and watches your reflection as a helpless smile lights up your face. 

“You’re making me blush,” you tell her, only half-joking.

“I can see that,” she says, a hint of a smile on her lips, and goes back to cleaning her guns.

The last few strands don’t take long. Sameen is waiting for you on the bed, having just finished cleaning her last gun. You know she could have been finished and out the door in half the time it took you to curl your hair—but then again, they hardly needed cleaning in the first place.

She takes a curl between her fingers and twirls it.

“All that work, every couple of days,” she muses. 

“I like it.” You lean closer. “Do you?”

Sameen rolls her eyes. Then she tugs on your curl and pulls you in for a kiss. It’s a soft, slow one—and as much of an answer as you’re likely to get.

“You think I’m pretty,” you say, teasingly, through your smile. She kisses you again, harder, to shut you up—and that’s an answer too.


	18. Prompt: Root gives Shaw a bath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous prompt for Root to give Shaw a bath

“It’s not _that_ bad.”

“If I had a dollar for every time you’ve said that…” says Root. She hops up from the bed, and the movement jostles the mattress hard enough to reignite the deep bruises and aching muscles that had _just_ started to calm down. “Shaw, you’re in the fetal position. Did you take anything?”

“A couple anti-inflammatories, half an hour ago.”

“Washed down with a healthy swig of that scotch I brought here last night, I see,” she notes, lifting the bottle from the hotel desk. “I’m sure your liver will thank you.”

“Ibuprofen, not acetaminophen. It’ll be fine.”

“I hope they kick in soon. I haven’t seen you this bad in a while.”

It’s true. Everything hurts. Everything fucking hurts, and Root is right, and that’s the worst thing of all. Well, other than having taken a few boots to the ribs a few days ago. All of those muscles are starting to really stiffen up, and the bruises are in full bloom. Behind closed eyes, the pain creates a kind of semi-hallucinatory aurora. A kaleidoscope.

A sound of splashing in the bathroom sink, and then a few glugs. Root hands over a freshly-rinsed glass with a little scotch in it. 

“Here you go, sweetie. Don’t move a muscle. I’m heading down for something. Be right back.”

The scotch is gone and the ibuprofen have started to kick in by the time Root gets back, shaking a carton of something granular–it would take twisting around to see what, and that’s just not in the cards. She drops it near the bathroom door, rinses out the empty glass, and refills it with water.

“Fair warning that I’m going to drag you out of bed in about 5 minutes,” she says, and disappears into the bathroom. 

The bath tap turns on. The scene is easy to fill in, even with closed eyes. The water flow interrupted as Root rinses out the tub; again and again as she tests the temperature with her hands. A shower of grains. The steady sound of a filling basin. The water sloshing around as Root runs her hands through it. The movements sound elliptical, slow. She’s probably sitting on the bathmat, legs folded underneath her, arms submerged to the elbows as her palms slide across the bottom of the tub. It’s a peaceful image.

She lifts herself up, towels off her arms, and comes back into the bedroom, to the side of the bed, gently lifts the half-full water glass with one hand, and touches a cheek with the other.

“All right, darlin’,” she says, putting on her full Southern drawl, “moment of truth.”

It hurts like hell to move, but Root’s relentless. She guides the way to the bathroom, peels off the painful layers of shirts and the bra that’s digging right into the worst bruise and the pants and underwear and everything, and points the way to the bath.

The water’s hot–stinging hot. 

“Too much?” asks Root, hand already on the tap. But it’s already bearable.

“Just need to acclimate.”

Slowly, the water swallows every stinging inch of flesh, up to the collarbone. It aches and burns and soothes; makes it harder–and then easier–to breathe.

“That’s my girl,” says Root, slipping in a wadded towel as a makeshift pillow. 

“What did you put in there?”

“Epsom salts,” she says, smoothing back a lock of hair slick with sweat and bathwater. “I always find them helpful a few days after someone beats me up.”

Fair enough. 

Her deep attention still feels weird, a little claustrophobic–itchy, even. But her hands feel nice, smoothing back hair, dabbing away slicks of sweat.

“You can leave, if you have stuff to do.”

Root doesn’t stop her gentle strokes.

“Do you want me to leave?”

It takes a moment to answer her.

“No, I guess not.”

“Then I’ll stay,” she says, simply, and dabs off another patch of sweat. She hands over the glass of drinking water, as cool as the bathwater is warm. 

“If you can stand soaking for fifteen minutes, it might do you some good.”

“I think I can handle that.”

Root smiles, the way she smiles at lots of things that don’t seem funny at all. 

Heat radiates from the swollen and bruised and strained places–not bad heat, almost healing heat. Sure, medical opinion is split on the effectiveness of epsom salts as a treatment for contusion and muscle fatigue. But between the salt and the heat rising from the bath; the watercolor look of bruises shimmering, distorted, in the water; the feeling of cold glass against lower lip; Root’s cool fingers and dabbing washcloth; this feels less like a treatment and more like a kind of spell.

The minutes slip by, warm and silent.


	19. Prompt: Never have I ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little different--alternate canon-compliant CIA safe house, because why not.

Shoes, socks, shirts, pants, and jackets are strewn over the floor. Root’s sitting on the other side of the table, tracing the wood grain with an idle finger. It’s a dead tie: down to bras and underwear. Nothing on the table but two glasses of water and an apple core that’s starting to brown at the edges.

Still four hours left.

Goddamn it. If this stupid CIA safe house had a pack of cards, or even a bottle of booze, Root’s sexy little black lace bra would have been her secret and no one else’s problem. As for her, she’s not even bothering to hide the way she stares, her eyes tracing every inch of bare skin with unconcealed lust. 

“Eyes are up here, creep.”

“What’s the use of playing the strip version if I don’t get to look?” she pouts. “Besides, it’s your turn.”

Root is admittedly great at this game. A worthy adversary. Hence the current tie. And that’s after everything, from shoot counts to creative torture instruments to garden-variety violence, that’s already been covered in the past hour of play. Only took about ten minutes to turn the classic self-disclosure into a creative guessing game. Root’s guesses are getting better, and vice versa. The one that got her to take off her shirt last round involved puncturing a dude’s lung with a stiletto. She may be a fucking psycho, but she’s got panache.

“Fine. Never have I ever… stabbed someone with an icicle.”

Root smiles. “Sounds fun, but nope.” She slides her finger underneath her bra strap, playing with it. “My turn. Never have I ever… slept with a man.”

“Wait. Like, as part of a mission?”

“Not just on a mission. Never.” She looks amused in a human, not-at-all-psycho way. “Don’t tell me I haven’t scored a point on you. I’ve been saving that one.”

Wow. Unexpected, but fair. Point Root.

“So what should I take off?”

Root shrugs. “Up to you. I’ll be happy either way.”

Bra’s easier. Doesn’t require getting up to take it off. Oh, christ, the woman’s eyes. Did she just lick her lips? Is it actually cold in here?

“If you say one word right now, I’m putting my clothes back on and the game’s over.”

Root sits back in her chair and waits for the next round.

“Okay. Let’s see. Never have I ever slept with anyone more than three times.”

“Interesting,” says Root, and reaches behind her to unhook her bra. She shakes her hair back over her shoulders to give the full unimpeded view, not shy in the least. Holy hell, this is going to be distracting.

“Something on your mind, Shaw?” She smirks. “My eyes are up here.”

Ugh. Insufferable bitch.

“You gonna make your move or not?”

“All right, then. Never have I ever hooked up with someone who’s shot me.”

She glances at her shoulder, the one that still sports a fresh scar. 

Unclear whether or not she was trying to score that last point, but she did, fair and square. Underwear comes off. Root stands up too, lets herself be backed against the wall by a single hand on her chest. Her heart is pounding, even faster than it did when the knife blade was against her throat, and she grins like a sphinx.

“Guess I won,” she whispers, before the first kiss stops her stupid, infuriating, sexy mouth.


	20. Braiding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt: Root braiding Shaw's hair.

Root’s fingers know this dance like she’s been doing it for years—which she probably has. Perfect sections, evenly sized. Each line of motion across the scalp fluid and precise, like an oar in water. 

Her fingers are sure, firm—not gentle, exactly, but tender. She hums a little as she works, pulling a strand just behind the ear, her fingertips brushing over the soft skin there in a way that sends a wave of shivers all over. The kind of shiver that a few months ago would have prickled, but not anymore. Like the brush of a shirt against clean skin, or the rustle of cotton sheets: there’s a rightness to it, a whispering feeling that can’t be put into words.

“Your hair is made for braiding,” says Root, twisting a strand into place. “Easy to handle. Nice and thick. It looks… sure of itself.”

“Sure of itself. We _are_ talking about hair, right?” It’s the kind of weird, whimsical thing Root likes to say, that sometimes takes a little digging to get to the bottom of.

“I mean, as opposed to those anemic braids. The kind that get all wispy at the ends.” Sift. Pull. Twist. “My braids used to look like that when I was younger. Before my hair turned brown and got thicker.”

“Turned brown? What color was it before?”

“I was blonde as a kid. And for a few teenage years, not much of a color at all.” Her next stroke is slower, less fluid, like her thoughts are taking up more bandwidth. “That’s about the time I learned to braid my own hair like this.”

It’s hard to imagine Root as a blonde, much less a dishwater blonde. Her eyes and her hair are such a sure brown. Chestnut in the sunlight, the color of black coffee in the shadows.

Root pauses again; she’s not done with her thought. She hesitates, the way she does now and then when she talks about her years in Texas.

“The braiding thing was… actually how I figured it out. Obliquely.”

“Figured out what?” Casually delivered—as follow-up questions have to be, to get her to finish her stories.

“That I liked girls.” She finishes tucking the strand into place and doesn’t pick up the next one right away. “There was a girl at my school who was good at doing braids. She did mine once, and I… I liked it a lot.” Root cards carefully through the strands to straighten out the ends. “A little too much, if you know what I mean. I still remember what it felt like, her fingers in my hair.”

She’s silent as she picks up the next strand. Not from expectation—she never expects an answer—just a little lost in her own thoughts. She’ll come back, eventually.

Mama used to do this on school mornings sometimes. In the days of stickers and crayons. She always talked, too, about how beautiful the braids turned out. _You’ll be a beautiful woman someday_ , she said.

It was torture to sit still, then, enduring the tugging and scolding. But middle school rolled around, eventually; Mama was no longer an all-powerful force, and braiding took too long to endure.

Twenty years later, here’s Root—whose mother probably never braided her hair—handling each strand with ritual rhythm. Root, whose every touch feels intentional, tender in a way that’s not as uncomfortable as it used to be. Sort of nice, actually. There’s something about an acquired taste that flips a switch, opens up new spaces inside—and Root is definitely an acquired taste.

The girl whose hands woke up Root’s body, all those years ago, probably never knew what she’d catalyzed. Never even guessed. But Root remembers—of course she does—the way she remembers everything. That’s her brilliant brain, her gift and her curse: constantly synthesizing and hypothesizing, sometimes getting locked in a repeat string so she can’t let go.

The remaining loose hair dwindles, disappears as Root picks up the final soft strands, which she handles with extra care, stroking down their length to incorporate them into the mass of the braid. From there, her fingers pick up speed.

“Anyway,” she says, finally, lightly, as if she’d only stopped talking a second ago. “It’s funny, the things that stay with us.”

When she reaches the ends, she pulls the elastic band off her wrists and twists it around and around, pulling it good and tight.

“That should do it,” she says. “Want a mirror to see?”

“I’m good. I trust you.”

Root hums, smiles, presses her nose into the braid and takes a deep breath, an audible breath of relief. Like she’s just come up to the surface after being churned underwater. She’s thinking about something—maybe something long ago, maybe far away.

Or maybe she’s just thinking about this moment, a quiet night and the smell of shampoo and fresh sheets, all warmth and peace and silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Root's actually referring to an incident from another story of mine, "Out of the Ash I Rise," which catalogues some experiences from her teenage years, if you're curious.


	21. Mini-Prompts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of 100-word-cap prompt fills I did over on my Tumblr.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are short, so I'm posting them all in one go! Prompt followed by fill. (Bonus: my very first AU is in there.)

Root or Shaw being ticklish.

 

At first you assumed she didn’t like the gentleness of it when you raked your fingernails gently over Sameen’s waist–why else would she swat you away?–but when you try her ribs one night and she squirms and scrunches and bites her lip, the reaction is so unmistakeable you’re surprised it had never occurred to you before.

She grabs your wrists to stop you–but when she sees from your face that she was too late to hide her secret, she just shakes her head and half-smiles.

“Tell no one,” she warns you.

“Oh, sweetie,” you say, “who would I tell?”

* * *

 

Shoot and the back of a police car

 

Getting arrested is a real inconvenience. Especially with Root, to whom everything is a frickin’ game.

“Oh dear,” she says, breathily, once the officer shuts the back door. “I hope my wrists don’t get chafed by these handcuffs.”

“It would serve you right after how long you left me locked up the other night.”

“You loved it,” she whispers, so close her breath feels damp, and damn it, it’s true.

“Is–is that your foot? Tell me you are not actually playing footsie with me right now.”

“Gotta pass the time somehow.”

She’s not wrong. And she smells good. Whatever.

* * *

 

Shaw training Bear to do something cute... for Root.

 

“What’s Dutch for ‘shake?’” asks Root as she strokes Bear’s head.

“Oh. Bear doesn’t really do tricks. Not what he was trained for.”

“Too bad.” Root plays with his ears. “My neighbor as a kid had a German shepherd. He loved to shake. Nicer to me than anyone else on the block.” She grins. “The dog, that is.”

Bear learns fast. Down cold two days later.

“Ask him now.”

“Ask what?” says Root, rubbing Bear’s shoulders.

“To shake.”

“Oh!” Root brightens. “Bear, shake.”

He holds out his paw. She takes it, lifts it gently, and smiles.

“So sweet,” she whispers.

* * *

 

Shaw wants root to move in tgt

 

“Hang on a sec,” says Shaw as you pull on your boots. She fishes around in her pocket until something jingles, and she pulls out a single key on a string. “Take this. I’m sick of you breaking and entering.”

“Why, Sameen, are you asking me to move in?”

“I just want you to know you have somewhere to crash that isn’t a park bench. Don’t read into it.”

You gently slide the loop of string from her finger and turn the key over in your hand. So freshly cut, it shines like a new penny.

* * *

  

Root or Shaw manages to change the sheets while Shaw or Root is still in bed.

 

[ ](http://venuscomb.tumblr.com/)

It’s nearly ten. Time to pry yourself loose from a curled-up, sleeping Sameen. Your pajamas are damp where you’re stuck together–hot night–and the air feels unbearably chilly as you climb out of bed.

Sameen deserves fresh sheets.

The room smells like laundromat when you shake out the clean stack of sheets. Carefully, you roll Sameen to one edge and swap one side of fitted sheet; to the other, and pull it tight underneath her. She shivers as you throw over the flat sheet, so you tuck it around her until she’s still again.

The girl really can sleep through anything.

* * *

 

"paint me like one of your ______ girls"

 

“Did you ever see _Titanic_?” asks Root.

“Teenager in the nineties. Would’ve been hard not to.”

“Did you feel anything, when you saw Kate Winslet naked?” She takes a contemplative bite of her sandwich.

“Like, sex things? I guess, a little.”

“I remember the moment she took off her robe. I went alone. Packed theater. Handful of popcorn halfway to my mouth, then she… and… I just sat still, hoping no one around me could hear how fast my heart was beating.”

“Wow. That’s… the gayest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Root takes another bite, rolls her eyes, and grins.

* * *

 

Root just can't stop making puns today.

 

“Boy, we were really on fire back there,” says Root.

“Do you have to do this _every_ time we use a flamethrower?”

“Sure do, hot stuff.”

“Root.”

“Afraid I’m going to make too many incendiary remarks in public?”

“Come on, dude. I can’t eat waffles to this.”

Root responds by sliding closer and pushing over the syrup, as if that’s gonna help.

“I just get fired up sometimes.”

“Back off. You smell like gasoline.”

“You’re only fueling the flames, darlin’.”

Under the table, Root’s hand starts to wander in interesting and inappropriate ways.

“Whatever. You’re getting the check.”

* * *

 

Root drawing hearts on a foggy window

 

“Why are you doing that?”

Root’s drawing lazy shapes, hearts and curlicues, on the window with her fingertip. It’s cold out and she insisted on keeping the windows shut even while cooking. The condensation has crawled up the windows, blurring the city lights below.

“I used to do this as a kid. Walked to the first stop on the bus line in the dark, when the bus was still cold inside. I liked that I could revive the shape by blowing on it. That there was something of me left behind.”

Through the shapes she’s traced, pinpricks of streetlight shine.

* * *

 

Shoot go swimming

 

Root looks delicious in a red string bikini. Many men at the beach also notice this, and Root’s smile flashes danger as she reaches into her tote.

“No tasing people at the beach. It’s fine. I’ll beat them up later if you want.”

After helping set up camp, Root wades slowly into the water, beyond the breakers, up to her chest, and lets the waves gently bob her up and down.

Her neck tastes like salt–sweat and seawater. She sighs and lets herself be lifted by the waist, trusting her weight to the water and a strong pair of hands.

* * *

 

Root warming shaw at night when she knows shaw is cold eventho shaw denies it

 

Maybe it’s the military training or hanging out with a lot of men, but Shaw has a pathological aversion to admitting she’s cold.

And to be fair, she rarely is. You’re the one who gets blankets dropped on your lap and shoulders regularly, too absorbed in your work to notice you’re shivering.

But Shaw shivers too, sometimes, in the dead of night. And if the next morning she’s annoyed to wake up as the little spoon, you’ll gladly take the blame. The feeling of Sameen’s skin warming against yours, her body softening into your arms, is completely worth it.

* * *

 

The new apartment they're crashing at has a flower garden growing on the rooftop

 

“Wisteria,” says Shaw. She traces the length of a purple cluster with her fingertips, rubs her thumb and forefingers together, and brings them to her nose. “I can smell jasmine, too, nearby.”

The cars below could be ants filing in line through the perimeter of the rooftop garden. The Machine picked a lovely little pièd-a-terre. Peaceful–especially at sunset.

“You know your flowers.”

“My mom had a green thumb,” she says. “I’ve killed every plant I’ve ever had. I miss her garden, sometimes.”

You close your eyes, inhale the perfume, and imagine young Sameen, walking in her mother’s garden.

* * *

 

Root reaching something high for Shaw from shelf :D

 

“I’ve got it.” Root swoops in, grabs the jar off the top shelf, and hands it over delicately.

“You didn’t have to do that. I almost had it. I was touching it.”

“I know,” she singsongs.

“You know I hate it when you do that.”

“Fine. I’ll get you a step stool and my services will no longer be needed. But first”–she reaches up to the shelf again and pulls down a package of spaghetti with an insufferable grin–“I think you might be wanting this.”

“ _God_   _damn it_ , Root.”

* * *

 

Shoot and hotel hopping

 

[ ](http://kate-the-rabbit.tumblr.com/)

Root throws back the sheets and jumps onto the bed. She likes to full-on starfish on any hotel bed the moment after the bags are in the closet, because, as she says, “it’s the fastest way to get a feel for it.”

“Verdict?”

She hums. “Firm, in the cheap way.”

“Linens?”

“Too crispy.” She grabs the pillow next to her head and squishes the visible lumps. “Ooh, remember the sheets at that one place in Dubai?”

“Oh, hell yes. I never wanted to leave that bed.”

“Me neither,” says Root, with a wicked little grin.

Yeah. Dubai was… fun.

* * *

 

Shaw brings root to fun fair cos root has never been to one

 

This giant-ass neon green bear is getting heavy to carry around, and Root is obviously not going to offer to take a turn. She’s too busy picking at a funnel cake and, for some stupid reason, blowing the powdered sugar off of each bite.

“Can’t I just give it to some kid?”

“I won it,” she pouts, as if that were an actual counterargument.

“Yeah, and terrified that poor teenage attendant with your sharpshooting skills.”

“What was I going to do, lose on purpose? Oh! Let’s go on the Ferris wheel!”

“Fine. But this thing stays on the ground.”

* * *

 

Root teaching Shaw how to ride a bike/horse

 

“You don’t have to pull like that. Their mouths are tender.”

“He’s not going where I want.”

“You have to talk to him in a way he’ll understand.” Root pivots her horse ninety degrees, gently, her body an extension of his as they move as a unit. The horse is a glossy chestnut; their hair kinda matches in this light. “Look in the direction you want to go, and press on his side with the opposite leg. And keep your heels down.”

The horse lurches a little, lazily, in the right direction.

“There you go,” cheers Root. “You’ve got this.”

* * *

 

Root and Shaw are teenagers AU and hold hands for the first time.

 

The biology room is always empty from 3 to 4 on Thursdays. Perfect venue for top-secret makeout sessions with soccer captain and certified babe Sameen Shaw. She’s an amazing kisser–not that you’ve had anyone to compare to, but still–and she smells and feels incredible.

Her mouth is flushed with bites and kisses when she asks what you’re doing tonight.

“Homework?”

“Skip it. Let’s see a movie.”

It’s known school-wide that Shaw doesn’t do dating. So you think she’s trying to steal your popcorn until the moment she intertwines your fingers.

You wonder if she can feel your heartbeat.

* * *

 

Root's been away for a couple of weeks and Shaw misses her...a lot!

 

Shaw shoves you against the wall so fast your suitcase falls on the floor.

“Nice to–” you start, before Shaw’s mouth is on yours and her fingers undoing your buttons.

It’s only been twelve days, and it’s not like you didn’t text every day to prove you were alive. But Sameen’s fingers are wound fast in your hair and her body presses your body into the wall like a rose pressed in a book, and everything feels right now that her hand is on your bare chest, just over your heart.

“Missed you too,” you whisper, afterward, stroking her cheek.


End file.
